DYLAN,BOB - KNOCKED OUT LOADED Price: €14.99 Format: Compact Disc Availability: Immediate Dispatch

As with most other 1980s Bob Dylan albums, KNOCKED OUT LOADED is a piece-meal work--a combination of various sessions, performed by different groups of musicians, presenting the many sides of Bob Dylan. Touching upon juke-joint R&B ("You Wanna Ramble"), reeling Stones-like blues-rock ("Got My Mind Made Up", co-written by then touring partner Tom Petty and featuring his Heartbreakers), and a gospel arrangement of a Kris Kristofferson tune ("They Killed Him") which inevitably harkens back to Dylan's earlier spiritual explorations, the bard seems unsure where his own attention lay.
Still, much as KNOCKED OUT lacks a sense of cohesion, it doesn't exclude the mystery of Dylan's best work. "Brownsville Girl", an eleven-minute opus co-written by playwright Sam Sheppard, is vintage Zimmerman, struggling to encompass an entire worldview within the context of a mid-tempo, brassy, Tex-Mex blues-as-passage-in-a-diary. It is a rough-edged diamond that is among the most unique parts of Dylan's entire catalogue, and it was delivered so effortlessly that nobody dared think Dylan had lost any of his powers.